Up in Flames
I've raised my kids to be rebels. Not toward all authority. But toward the idea of false authority. In other words, if a teacher is a bully (and I'm talking about YOU, the jerk who doesn't believe in ever allowing children to use the restroom during two-hour blocks of class), and speaks to children like they are chattle, and speaks to parents like they are imbeciles, then . . . frankly, that teacher doesn't deserve to be treated as an authority. Merely as a flawed person. We might take pity on him. But we can pull the curtain back from the Wizard of Oz and say, "There, son, he is merely a man . . . and quite frankly, not much of one at that."
I don't believe in children blindly following adults. I don't believe in blindly following my government. Hence I have taken them to march on the Mall in Washington, and headed toward the Capitol steps. My kids have yelled, with 50,000 voices to stop the war, and they have voiced highly articulate defenses of gay rights in the face of the conservative community in which we live.
This weekend, Oldest Son worked on his science fair project (while suffering from the flu, poor guy). He had done the research. Flame-retardant clothing should not light up in flames and then melt. We bought cheap pjs from Wal-Mart--flame-retardant, and made in Cambodia--and they lit up like a friggin' Christmas tree that hasn't been watered in two months and is now tinder. Flames! Melting! Practically a house fire. (Kidding there, we had a special set-up for lighting them on fire.) Now this turn of events is seriously going to f*ck with Oldest Son's hypothesis. And you know what, I'm hoping for him to write a letter to Congress and INCLUDE it with his science fair. This is an outrage! And it's against the law.
But here's the thing. We could have faked his test results. Could have. Didn't. We know what was SUPPOSED to happen based on exhaustive research. That it DIDN'T happen means the company that made them and Wal-Mart are passing these dangerous products onto consumers--little kids. So is his science fair ruined? Not by a long shot. Not in MY book. Could be my kid actually gets something pulled from the shelves. Maybe he'll make a difference. Maybe he'll become a consumer advocate when he grows up. Maybe he'll Go to Cambodia and SEE the sweatshops where these crappy products are made. (I would never have bought them if not for science fair). The point is . . . there is a LIFE lesson here, and he is learning experientially.
Which brings me to writing.
If you do not not have at least one abysmal failure in your arsenal, you're probably not a writer. If you don't have a mansucript that lit up like tinder . . . my guess is you haven't been at this a while.
There are some lessons that can only be learned by having your science fair be revealed as a corporate plot to foist shoddy products on American consumers. Or . . . that can only be learned by getting mid-way through a book and learning you don't have enough story or character depth to finish it. There are some lessons that are only learned once you box yourself into a certain point of view. There are some lessons only learned by realizing what you have is a great, big steaming pile of quirks and character sketch--but no real character CHANGE and thus . . . hell, it's not a novel.
The solution isn't to fake your results. The solution is to start your next book more determined and more aware than ever before. It's to salute the steaming pile of meh . . . and take what you learned and move on to the next book.
So what did you learn from your biggest literary failure?
--E
P.S. VOTE FOR EDIE RAMER. She has made it to the next round in the American Title contest. Keep her dream alive!!!!
23 comments:
I was about 200 pages into my first novel when I realized it was lacking something called a protagonist.
Look, science is about experiments. So are Science Fairs. You make a hypothesis, you test it. The tests prove or disprove your hypothesis. If the tests disprove your hypothesis, you've learned as much as what proving it would have. Thomas Edison noted when he did, what?, 10,000 experiments to make a light bulb, that they weren't failures, just discovering 10,000 ways NOT to do something.
It sounds to me like your son's science fair experiment was a phenomenal success. Kudos!
The problem with writing as an experiment is all too often we don't change, we just keep doing the same damned types of books over and over again without success without finding out what's wrong with our hypothesis.
The man who founded UPS was told by his college professor that the concept would never work and given an F for his project.
What really irritates doctors is when you question them, but you know sometimes people die because they don't.
When you really want to break into a field, it's hard to question the authority of an established writer/editor. Have you ever done that?
Jude:
That's a pretty serious missing ingredient. LOL!
E
Mark:
Wow . . . you know . . . I once edited for a woman who was trying to break into romance/chick lit. I must have read five different books by her, but they all seemed to have the same flaws--just with new characters. You are probably right . . . many writers likely do that.
E
Richmond:
Honestly? I have been lucky to really like the professionals I have worked with. I don't feel like I have had to.
I can remember, though, once or twice having published writers in my critique groups--one with a publishing history as long as my arm--but I just didn't think she really came at writing from a perspective I could relate to--it all seemed very pseudo-intellectual, very much about pontificating, and not about "hearing" what anyone had to say.
E
I have several comments--
1. His science fair is made better by what he found out. It could actually have a little part in changing an injustice (more than an injustice, a lie that causes tragedies).
2. I have a whole string of failures. My character Harry came out of those failures, and my dedication to left outs as main characters came from there too. I wouldn't for the world show you some of the first things I wrote.
3. Maybe it is even more important not to fake it in something you think you can sell just to sell it. That's what I could called "canned" writing which most often doesn't have any real life in it.
I discovered the joy of writing short stories through my failures with novels.
Here's to Oldest Son giving the big corporation a black eye!
My first attempt at writing a book was an interesting one and I learned a lot of my craft in working on that book. Not in writing it - that really only took a week. But in editing, rewriting, etc. This book is not meant for public consumption, but it is my baby because of how much love I poured into it and how much I learned from it.
Joe:
I agree. I am not disappointed, though I hope his science teacher feels the same way. Seems like a good guy.
And #3 . . . oh, yes. Totally true. True, funny story . . . I spoke at an RWA luncheon when Spanish Disco came out. There were SEVERAL much older ladies there who had been trying to break into romance for years. I am talking maybe late 70s. And now they were going to try chick lit--because that was what editors were buying. And I could tell, from talking to them, that they were simply not "current" in their views on sexuality, in trends and pop culutre. And I thought, "There is no way they can adequately fake the voice required for chick lit."
Of course, eventually, the tide turned--no one is buying chick lit now. And I wonder . . . what if they--and others--had stayed true to what they WANTED to write and kept developing that instead of faking what was hot--and likely not succeeding anyway.
E
sex scenes:
Interesting. I love the short story as an art form . . . but I haven't played with it in a while.
E
Sarah:
We all have those first babies. I have one. I doubt I'd try to sell it for a variety of reasons, but when I look at it once in a while, I see how much I LOVED it. Really loved it.
E
I learned by trying to pants two novels, and getting lost in the middle of them, that I needed to outline.
Stephen:
I still do it without outlines and use story arcs instead. But I'm always DAMN sure I have enough story. Been there, done that with running out of plot.
E
First, I'll be a little kiss-ass-y and say that I love the way you're choosing to raise your kids. I only have a soon-to-be four year old, and that encourages me in the things I'm trying to teach her, even now.
Second, I have 150 pages of half-assed Fantasy Novel ridiculousness. I'm pretty sure it hits on every fantasy cliche there is, but the scene about the villain managed to get me into a graduate-level fiction seminar when I was still an undergrad... so that I could learn how poorly it was written from the mouths of elitist, condescending graduate students. yay.
I also have a "completed" manuscript about a University professor turned rock-goddess. And while the writing is pretty good, I used song lyrics all the way through the book only to discover that copyright infringement is the fun killer of the rock-goddess genre. Oh teh sadness.
So it's 50,000 words without the lyrics, and "bulking" it up to make it novel length would most likely make for a lot of unnecessary scenes that don't belong. More sadness.
I keep thinking that one day I'll have some grand idea on how to fix these half projects, but maybe it's better to just mourn their loss and keep pushing forward on the new ideas.
Heather:
I feel your pain. ;-) You know, sometimes I think it's best to shove on to new thing. BUT I will add one caveat . . . though you can't include LYRICS, you CAN include song titles. My YA, ROCK MY WORD (written as Liza Conrad) did that and opened every chapter with a song title that carried the theme of the chapter. So maybe it's rescuable?
And thanks on the kid thing. I really don't pretend to know what I am doing, despite having four kids. And if you have ever visited my Demon Baby blog, you can see how often I fail miserably and to great disaster. But I do figure that the ONE thing I can try to teach them is integrity. And the other is compassion.
E
Oh, Erica, if only you dealt with parents every day as a teacher. I could list story after story, but at least 30% of parents are really clueless. The things they say in front of (and to) their children are just astonishing, and then they have absolutely NO CLUE when the consequences of those words take effect. It is truly mind-boggling. Only about 10% of parents are as aware (and as smart) as you. The other 60% are just fine to work with.
I do believe in fixing and finishing everything, but the amount of fixing has, at times, been huge. I've written books in third, switched to first, switched back to third, and then to first again. (I did that with two or three books and it remains one of the best things I've ever done.) I've made huge messes; the process of re-organizing, shaping, and cleaning it up have taught me to see a novel from a bird's eye view, to see the overall structure and the character arcs and the pacing from a rhythmic point of view.
Every word I write teaches me something!
Hi Spy:
Nothing you tell me could shock me. After 18 years as a parent, I can only say that sometimes I wonder if some parents even know why they had kids in the first place.
E
Erica, thanks for the shout out! With what Oldest Son has uncovered, lives can be saved. I hope his teacher realizes this and helps get the word out.
Mistakes are what I do best. I'm still making them, but now I catch them faster. In the past, my biggest problems were not enough emotion and tension. Probably two of the most important things in any book.
edie:
I just heard from his teacher and he's all on-board for documenting it and letter writing and so on. Let a "good deed" come from the science is what he feels.
The guy is a gem. We need more teachers like that.
E
The first book I tried to write was about *Sigh* homosexual vampires. I though everything was going great up until the halfway point and started to see that the set up was awfully similar to Twilight.
Needless to say, I was crushed.
I learned to make sure that I'm writing MY book, not someone else's book.
-J.T.
J.T.
You know, EVERYTHING has been done before. As long as you make it your OWN . . .
E
Erica, I like what you said about teachers who are bullies. But I wonder if there are more teachers today who aren't bullies as opposed to those who are. I think some earn respect, while others force it on the kids, yet from what I've seen in the local schools, children aren't taught what respect means, and therefore respect is lost on the many. In other words, the really great teachers aren't able to do what they do best because they're busy trying to handle those kids who are clueless about respect.
Anyway, that out of the way, I believe one has to fail in order to succeed. To me it says that I've tried without giving up. But then there are those who quit at the first failure, and they most likely weren't well suited to become writers in the first place. It's also important, as a writer, to really listen to not only what the story is saying, but to what those critiquing or beta-reading have to say.
A real writer, imo, realizes that with each novel there will be flaws. No such thing as perfect when you release your ms to others.
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